Today our society constantly consumes however little thought is put into consuming less to prevent unnecessary waste. People continue to purchase products on impulse buys and fads this type of consumer oriented thinking is ingrain throughout our lives with the constant advertising and marketing that surrounds us.
People tend to have a dis association with their waste and once its thrown out its out of mind. However that trash has to be collected this creates carbon dioxide and water vapor in the Earth's atmosphere. Heat-trapping gases -- including chlorofluocarbons, methane, ground-level ozone and nitrous oxides , many of which are given off at dumps. Landfills are the most common and account for more than 90 percent of the US municipal waste. Global levels of carbon dioxide alone have increased by 25% since the start of the Industrial Revolution. The United States contributes over one billion tons of carbon to the atmosphere each year.
The disposal of trash costs Americans more than $28 billion each year. Within four years, one-third of the nation's landfills will be full. Over 30% of the volume of municipal solid waste is the packaging and containers from products we buy -- boxes, bags, plastic and glass. Paper and cardboard account for about 40% of all municipal solid waste by weight. The average American produces over three-quarters of a ton of waste each year. Every minute, Americans use 1,736 plastic bottles.
Clean and readily available water is growing scarce. Less than 1% of the Earth's water is available as drinking water; the rest is either seawater, frozen, or too deep underground to reach. In the United States we use around 89 billion gallons of groundwater each day. Half of our population gets drinking water from groundwater; 40% of drinking water may come from contaminated wells. One fourth of our groundwater withdrawals exceed natural replacement rates from rainfall.
Many of the products in our homes are toxic and can cause serious environmental problems if they are disposed of improperly. Household products like those listed below can contain acute and chronic toxins, carcinogens, mutagens, neurotoxins, environmental toxins, or chemical compounds that cause developmental and reproductive problems. Thousands of untested substances then become pollutants when poured down drains leaching into water tables. The method of incineration pours these chemicals into our atmosphere to be inhaled by us or into rain which grows our entire edible plantation. Agricultural fertilizers, sewage, urban runoff and other land-based sources contribute to nearly half of all marine pollution. Up to 20,000 outfall pipes in the United States dump raw sewage into coastal waters. An additional third of marine pollution is from atmospheric pollutants, such as metals and slowly degrading chemicals from farms, automobiles and factories. These toxic materials settle into sea-floor sediments, and eventually long-lasting chemicals may enter the food web and contaminate the fish and shellfish we eat.
In Naples, Italy trash has got to the point of overflow since organized crime has played a significant role in blocking action by the local government. The problem has been compounded by the city's mafia, the camorra, which is said to make millions of euros from the transport and illegal dumping of waste. They are accused of sabotaging plans for new incinerators that are more efficient. Anti-mafia investigators say the camorra even processes waste from factories across Italy at cut-price rates. Camorra-controlled waste disposal by burial or burning trash. However this has poisoned the environment so badly that people in some parts of the Campania region are three times more likely to get liver cancer than in the rest of the country.
Today our society constantly consumes however little thought is put into consuming less to prevent unnecessary waste. People continue to purchase products on impulse buys and fads this type of consumer oriented thinking is ingrain throughout our lives with the constant advertising and marketing that surrounds us.
People tend to have a dis association with their waste and once its thrown out its out of mind. However that trash has to be collected this creates carbon dioxide and water vapor in the Earth's atmosphere. Heat-trapping gases -- including chlorofluocarbons, methane, ground-level ozone and nitrous oxides , many of which are given off at dumps. Landfills are the most common and account for more than 90 percent of the US municipal waste. Global levels of carbon dioxide alone have increased by 25% since the start of the Industrial Revolution. The United States contributes over one billion tons of carbon to the atmosphere each year.
The disposal of trash costs Americans more than $28 billion each year. Within four years, one-third of the nation's landfills will be full. Over 30% of the volume of municipal solid waste is the packaging and containers from products we buy -- boxes, bags, plastic and glass. Paper and cardboard account for about 40% of all municipal solid waste by weight. The average American produces over three-quarters of a ton of waste each year. Every minute, Americans use 1,736 plastic bottles.
Clean and readily available water is growing scarce. Less than 1% of the Earth's water is available as drinking water; the rest is either seawater, frozen, or too deep underground to reach. In the United States we use around 89 billion gallons of groundwater each day. Half of our population gets drinking water from groundwater; 40% of drinking water may come from contaminated wells. One fourth of our groundwater withdrawals exceed natural replacement rates from rainfall.
Many of the products in our homes are toxic and can cause serious environmental problems if they are disposed of improperly. Household products like those listed below can contain acute and chronic toxins, carcinogens, mutagens, neurotoxins, environmental toxins, or chemical compounds that cause developmental and reproductive problems. Thousands of untested substances then become pollutants when poured down drains leaching into water tables. The method of incineration pours these chemicals into our atmosphere to be inhaled by us or into rain which grows our entire edible plantation. Agricultural fertilizers, sewage, urban runoff and other land-based sources contribute to nearly half of all marine pollution. Up to 20,000 outfall pipes in the United States dump raw sewage into coastal waters. An additional third of marine pollution is from atmospheric pollutants, such as metals and slowly degrading chemicals from farms, automobiles and factories. These toxic materials settle into sea-floor sediments, and eventually long-lasting chemicals may enter the food web and contaminate the fish and shellfish we eat.
In Naples, Italy trash has got to the point of overflow since organized crime has played a significant role in blocking action by the local government. The problem has been compounded by the city's mafia, the camorra, which is said to make millions of euros from the transport and illegal dumping of waste. They are accused of sabotaging plans for new incinerators that are more efficient. Anti-mafia investigators say the camorra even processes waste from factories across Italy at cut-price rates. Camorra-controlled waste disposal by burial or burning trash. However this has poisoned the environment so badly that people in some parts of the Campania region are three times more likely to get liver cancer than in the rest of the country.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2007-07-11-1757084902_x.htm (USA Today)
http://www.si.edu/ripley/eap/poster.htm (Smithsonian Institute)
http://www.umich.edu/~gs265/society/wastedisposal.htm (Luke Bassis)